Presently, instant lottery tickets are offered at a wide variety of retail locations. For example, retail locations may maintain cases, displays, or other inventory points at which tickets for one or more types of instant lottery tickets are stored and/or sold. As items of monetary value, the lottery tickets must be treated more carefully than other inventory at the retail location. Presently, personnel at retail locations must devote substantial time manually counting instant tickets, such as at the beginning and/or end of a shift, business day, or other time interval.
Also, at many retail locations, sales of instant and other lottery tickets are handled using a lottery point-of-sale system or terminal dedicated to handling lottery transactions. The lottery system is typically not integrated with the retail establishment's point-of-sale (POS) system, and there is no easy way for retailers to record sales made using the lottery system with their own POS system.